


The Pipes, the Pipes

by SandrC



Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Episode 8 Spoilers, Gen, deaths that could have been
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:55:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24418483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SandrC/pseuds/SandrC
Summary: In the flash, the heat of battle, it is by sheer luck that everyone survives, wet, bedraggled, on the deck of a commandeered ship. In the background, the echoing thunder beats behind the pipes of war.What if the slaughter had claimed one of them? How, then, would they march on?(Seven deaths that could have been, and one lone survivor.)
Relationships: The Rocks Family
Comments: 18
Kudos: 65





	The Pipes, the Pipes

**Author's Note:**

> Immediately saw everything that could have gone wrong in episode 8 and immediately went "cool, this is my jam, lemme just..."
> 
> To offset the karma, I will later write something softer with Primsy — and holy fuck am I happy she survived — but for now? Take care of yourself.
> 
> To quote This December, "only in my darkest moments can I see the light". It's why i write sad. Its easy to find the light in the darkness.
> 
> Anyway, I've only known Cumulous Rocks for an episode but I already love this death monk. The way of the long death is fun and spooky.
> 
> Warning for a lot of cold and analytical understanding of dying. Also violence. Lots of that hhh.

_**i** _

Theo is sinking to the bottom of the Yoghurt Shoals, the armor that has saved _so many_ lives weighing him down. As he closes his eyes, the lack of oxygen causing what little vision he has to spin and warp, he _swears_ he can see Lazuli.

"Did I do you proud?" He asks, his voice an echo, smaller than he's ever heard it, as if the weight of his many years has lifted. "Did I do the right thing?"

"You did what you could," he hears her say—is it her, or some kind of lacran spirit, a siren, or even a hallucination of a man on the cusp of death?—but she continues. "There were _so many_ paths, so many _deaths_ , and you prevented _all_ of them. The Rocks family _survived_ thanks to your diligence. You were an inspiration to them all and helped temper Jet's nature. She's too like my brother for her own good, and your desire to save _without_ sacrifice was what she needed to keep her from mirroring his brand of foolishness."

He feels a smile overtake his face. It's all he can do. " _Thank you_ for believing in me," he says.

"Thank _you_ for putting in the effort. There are many who wouldn't."

And with that, he is gone, the sea above him calm despite the raging storm. His grave does not tarnish his bright armor, and Swirlwarden sits on its place on his arm, in front of him, defensive.

Theobald Gumbar finally rests.

* * *

**_ii._ **

Ruby shrieks. Her heart, her other half, her _sister_ —!

Gone, beneath the waves.

The locket around her neck is heavy, _cold_. She grips it in her hand, the other around Sour Scratch, both clammy and shaking. It doesn't pulse or beat with the warmth of a heart any longer, the magic dulling under her fingers. She can feel, _with a horrifying certainty_ , Jet leave this world.

And with it, half of _her_ goes as well.

She is _certain_ , with a _striking_ clarity, as to _why_ ~~their~~ her pops seems to want to die so badly. To be _alone_ after so long _with_ someone is _impossible_. She feels hollow. She feels like the breath in her breast is gone, her ribcage a void.

If there _are_ Hungry Ones, one must live _inside_ her now, having eaten whatever made her good.

Ruby cries as her heart sinks beneath the yoghurt waves, the cheese ship they're aboard cutting through to Candia, Annabelle at the helm. Amethar holds her close, gripped to his chest in a loose hold while she mourns. While _they_ mourn.

(She can see Liam in the corner of her eye, his face stoic and sharp, and she _knows_ he is sympathetic but _it's not the same_. _She_ knows it's not the same. _He_ knows it's not the same. So he keeps his distance, next to Theo, who is talking to the newcomer—Cumulous, someone _vaguely_ related to her in the same way _Liam_ is—and gives her a cool nod that says " _when you need me._ " And she may very well need him.)

In her ears, the phantom of her Aunt Lazuli reassures her—insofar as it can _be_ an assurance—"She is not in pain. She is at rest. She is _at peace_."

Ruby, however, _is not_.

* * *

_**iii.** _

She _said_ she would protect her. She said she would _keep her safe._

Stilton's blade splinters through Primsy's chest, fracturing cracks running through her face. The young duchess lets out a choked noise as milk trickles around his sword and then, as he removes it with a sharp grunt, the trickle becomes a stream.

Jet's boots are soaked in milk, her hair dripping, and she tightens her grip on Flickerish until her knuckles pale with tension. Darting forward, she strikes at Stilton—the House Bleu _fuck_ piece of shit _fucking asshole_ fucking mouldy _cunt_ —but he parries and does a soft backflip off the crow's nest into a rowboat.

" _Get back here you coward!_ " Jet yells after him. Even with the rest of the battle raging around them, she only has eyes for this man who would marry someone like Primsy for power and _murder_ her for the same. She vaguely knows that everyone else is struggling, that she's drawing the eyes of archers, that _she's being foolish_ , but she's already lost someone today and she _can't._ **_She can't!_**

"Come down 'ere and _fight_ me, traitor! The Pontifex would _love_ to 'ave your 'ead in the stocks, but I'm sure she would reward me if I brought her _any_ part of you as proof the 'eretics and Candian bastards are dead!"

Jet sees red.

" _Call me that again,_ " she warns. Her voice is low, barely audible. The ringing in her ears drowns out most everything, but she can hear Annabelle cry out for Primsy and it sets her blood ablaze even brighter.

" ** _Bastard_** ," he says, careful, _pronounced_.

Flickerish finds its home in his mouth almost immediately afterwards. Jet discards his body over the edge and doesn't bother watching it sink beneath the waves, too occupied with cutting her way back to the crow's nest to take Primsy so she can at least have a burial in whatever way the Lacran folks do.

Her chest hurts. She wishes, more than anything, she had done better to protect Primsy.

_She had promised._

In her head, echoes the Pontifex, " _Oathbreaker_."

* * *

_**iv.** _

He is here to help. Having teleported using one of the Archmage Lazuli's _many_ failsafes to bring aide to the former royal family, he is certain _some_ sort of death will occur. It is inevitable, as death often is.

The storm raging around him is a stark reminder. He hums in mild frustration, vaguely damp. He isn't fond of being damp.

Lives are lost to his staff, the cheese warriors thrown to the deep as he swings about and whips into them. They're foes. It is how it is. (The screaming void inside of him calls for some sustenance. Soon. _Soon._ )

His arrival does not herald a change to the tide of war. _That's fine._ He doesn't need to change the _tides_ , only disrupt the _flow_. He is a stone dropped in a pond, not a boulder in the reef. He is fine with these events.

The arrows that tear into his sugar-floss skin pull strands away to pin to the cheeseboard deck. If he had much blood to give, it would be leaking, but he is as he is. As this battle is.

He turns to face what will come.

He is, after all, _aware_ of what is happening around him. Amethar is safe, Ruby is safe, the newly minted Prince Liam is safe, Theobald is sinking beneath the waves, Jet is struggling to stay afloat, and he is flanked on all sides. More than that, the Lacran Duchess is down, the captain of their allied ship is struggling, and the Shoals are consuming the detritus.

If he has to fall for others to rise, then so be it. It will be as it is.

A barbed baconsteel arrow strips a chunk out of his shoulder. Another takes some out of his side. He hums, again, resonating with the Hunger in him.

If that is how it is, then _there we go._

He had only come to _help_. He didn't _need_ to live.

And if the Hungry Ones sates themselves on his body then they will be appeased for as long as _that_ lasts.

And that may be how it will be. Only time can tell.

And even then, _that_ is unsure.

* * *

_**v.** _

She has spent her whole life on the sea—or what part of her life that _matters_ —and so she is unsurprised with how this is turning out, to some degree. She _knew_ her grave would be a watery one. Gallons of milky ocean above her, her broken ship below.

It's frustrating to not know if Primsy will _survive_ this, though, and this keeps the fight in her chest, her arms and legs pumping to try and swim parallel to the current.

(You don't _fight_ it, you _ride_ it. That's an old law, old lore. _Parallel_. Don't expend all your energy trying to surface. Be smart. _Be smart._ )

She saw Primsy fall. Saw Jet throw the bastard Stilton—and she had used that boon to allow that to happen, how dare she _how dare she_ **_how dare she_** —off the crow's nest and into the depths. She knew that there was a chance things could be okay for them.

She knew if she sank they wouldn't have a captain.

Her arms ache.

_I wish_ , she thinks, as a chunk of cheeseboard whips past her head, _that I had been **smarter**. I wish_, she thinks, a sharp snapped off piece of rigging pierces her leg, _I had pursued my love when I could. I wish_ , she thinks, praying insofar as she has any faith, save to the inherent goodness of people or the camaraderie of her crew, _I had believed them or seen the look on their faces when I asked for my boon._

If wishes were fishes. _If wishes were fishes._

Annabelle struggles to keep from sleeping with them.

She's _so_ exhausted.

_I wonder if I will become a mermaid. What a fanciful tale. I think it would be nice to see Primsy again, even as some spirit of the waves. A mermaid would be fine. If only to make sure she's fine._

If wishes—if prayers—and she lets her tired arms go.

* * *

_**vi.** _

_She slips._

It's like the dream she had in that half-awake place before Lapin brought her back. Mid-air, arms empty, legs unbound from the rope that had kept her tethered, she feels weightless. What was exhilarating is now terrifying. The comfort of a safe fear is gone. There is no net just in case.

The air is cold. Sharp. Biting. Salty, on her lips, a taste she is unfamiliar with. The weight of realization drags her down.

_Jet will be alone and halved._

_Pops will remain Unfallen, having watched another family member die in his stead._

_Theo will have failed another Rocks sister._

_Liam will have lost another friend._

"I don't _want_ to go." Can they hear her above the din? Can they see her plummet? Do they know she is lost?

"They won't be alone," the soft echoing voice of her Aunt Lazuli reassures her.

"It's _not enough_! I don't _want_ them to just be _not alone_! I want to _be_ there with them!" Is time passing? Is this time passing? Is this anything, or is it a mid-death hallucination, like before. "I _can't_ leave her!"

"You never will," Aunt Lazuli says.

Ruby bites back, "But I _will_! Far beneath the shoals, beneath the waves, where they cannot get me! I'll be lost and she'll be _alone_ and _I promised I wouldn't leave her!_ "

Lazuli's face is sad, a hologram reflected in the sheets of milk rain that whips around Ruby's falling form. " _I know_ ," she sighs. "But some promises can't be upheld. You just have to accept that."

"I will _never_ —!" Her retort is cut off mid-sentence as the shock and impact of her body on the strangely solid waves clamps her jaw closed. "I _can't_ —!"

" _I_ _know_ ," Lazuli says and, beside her, looking just as sorrowful, is Aunt Citrina and Aunt Rococoa and Aunt Saphira, smiling, arms extended in invitation. "I know."

And they pull her into a fond embrace.

* * *

_**vii.** _

Irony. _Unfallen_. The last of a long line.

Only not any more.

There is pride in his chest as he watches Jet mercilessly stab, dispose of, and chuck a knife into the corpse of Silton Cordeaux. There is a delight as he watches Ruby fly above the deck and pick off enemies one by one with his sister's bow. There is conflicted crowing as Liam—sunken in the shadows, eyes red and raw, tracked with tears—obliterates enemy after enemy with precise bolts of cold peppermint.

And then he is in the waters, rocked sideways by nature itself, and the shock causes him to laugh.

Unfallen, falling, down _down **down.**_

_Have I done right by you? Have I done our family proud? Is there anything worth being proud of in my legacy or have I left behind a shattered kingdom?_ The off-white of the waves obscure his vision and his arms and legs are heavy from the effort of staying afloat. There wasn't a lot of ocean in Candia—though his time with Joren _did_ have him on beaches, it was never for leisure, but he could swim at the very least—so his understanding of the tides was _minimal_. How _does_ one surface when the depths want to consume you?

_I'm sorry I've made your lives harder. Caramelinda, you have so many pieces to pick up. I hope our girls can assist you._ He wonders if the afterlife really exists, considering how the Church is and how the Bulb was. He wonders if his lack of faith influences where he winds up or if the Hungry Ones will take him regardless.

_I hope I've at least prepared you for the world. Ruby, Jet, Liam...I hope you are suited for the war that is coming. I hope it doesn't become all you are, but I hope it doesn't consume you._ They're so young. Too young. Things should be easier for them but...life doesn't always work that way. It's a pity. He hates that it's a pity.

_Sorry, Theo, but you're gonna hafta protect them now. Can't believe I've done this to you as well. At least **mine** is accidental. Take care of them._ He exhales, viscous bubbles drifting about, above his head in a halo of life. Around him, cheeseboard flotsam and sinking cheese corpses dance with him at the whims of nature. He relaxes, stops fighting, and succumbs.

The Unfallen _falls_.

And all is still.

* * *

_**viii.** _

Liam, heart caught in a strange, _dark_ place, watches as anyone who he's ever cared about drop like flies.

He's already lost Preston—a hole in his chest with teeth that fills with frost and _hate_ —and Lapin—who _must_ have cared, if the paw that moved him away from Keradin meant _anything_ —and he can't _he can't **he can't—!**_

Primsy—a sword in her chest and a blow to her head—shatters on the crow's nest. She had been _nice_ to him, made him _her champion_ , had been close to his age. She didn't deserve this and it's so shitty how _fast_ it happened.

Jet—angry and screaming, avenging Primsy, taking Stilton down—sinks beneath the waves without a sound. She had _sought out_ Liam and brought him into their fold, the two twins and himself, and made him feel _accepted_. She promised she would help him and he had _failed_ her.

Theo—having spent so much time leaping about to protect others, his face glistening with milk rain and sweat—slips and the Shoals eat him. He had been the first person to be nice to him when he arrived at Castle Candy, citing a mutual wardship, and Liam looked up to him. And when it mattered, _he couldn't do a damn thing to help him_.

Amethar—burning bright in the darkness, a beacon and a blender of cheese and blade—is thrown by the pitching of the ocean and, like Jet, like Theo, _sinks_. He hadn't been unkind, but he had some camaraderie with Liam, a soft conversation about trails and the Candy Mountains and war, promises to protect _no matter what_ , that he was _family_. Words of praise that mean _nothing_ if he's dead.

Ruby—acrobatic and precise, casting heretical magic here and there as she saves and takes lives in equal measures—slips and her neck cracks on the deck of the ship. They hadn't been close but the bond of magic in secret—peppermint thorns and seedlings and butterscotch wings and sparkling clouds of powdered sugar fog—had tied them close and she _never once_ did _anything_ like his own brothers did so, if _that's_ what siblings were supposed to be, _no wonder_ everyone else loved their siblings. But she was unmoving, contorted prone, a macabre mirror of her on the top of the caravan, a bolt of baconsteel through her throat, and no magic will put her together again.

Annabelle—directing, as a captain does—goes with her ship without so much as a cry. She hadn't been _kind_ , but she had offered advice, and that was more than most. The vacuum of _the Colby_ takes her and he finds he cannot understand the irony.

Liam is alone on a ship, a rowboat, in a storm, and it is by the grace of _whatever_ cold darkness that cloaks him that he is alive to tell the tale.

He _hates_ it. The loneliness gnaws at his insides.

But he puts his hands on the oars, looks for the sun, and rows. Either he'll find shore, or he'll _die_. Whichever happens will be _an_ end, he supposes.

He just can't find it in himself to care either way.

**Author's Note:**

> _And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,  
>  And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,  
> For you will bend and tell me that you love me,  
> And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me!_


End file.
